


A Mother's Burden

by NikiBogwater



Series: Heroes About the House [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Dad!Link, F/M, Family Fluff, Mommy!Zelda, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-10-01 17:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20345011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikiBogwater/pseuds/NikiBogwater
Summary: Zelda has to learn a hard truth about motherhood when her son earns his first bruise. Zelink parental feels.





	A Mother's Burden

Zelda was in despair.

This was worse than coming down from Mount Lanayru with no powers to show for her efforts. Worse than facing Calamity Ganon alone, knowing Link was trapped in the Shrine of Resurrection for goddess knew how long. Worse than being cocooned in the belly of evil itself, praying ceaselessly, living off of hope alone, never knowing if the next moment would be the one where she finally lost her strength. Truly, this was the worst disaster she had ever faced in her unfathomably long life.

Tiran had run into a column in the hall and now had a bruise the size of a small plum on his forehead. He was wailing piteously. 

“I’m so sorry, my darling!” she whimpered, clutching her squirming boy tightly. “It was all my fault! Please forgive me!” Tiran, being only eleven months old, did not yet understand the concept of forgiveness, and so continued to scream unhappily. Zelda was quite close to weeping herself. 

She had been so careful! When he was born, he was so tiny and fragile, she felt as though he would break with the slightest movement of her arms. She had vowed that first day that she would never allow harm to befall him, not before he had a chance to defend himself. And she had done everything right, up until now. He had never wanted for anything more than a diaper change in his short existence. She had just begun to believe that perhaps she really could raise this delicate, infinitely precious little bundle of life. And then he had begun to walk. 

Perhaps “walk” was a generous way of putting it. It was more of a drunken swagger. But it was more effective than crawling, and suddenly a whole new world had opened up for Tiran to wander through. And one of the first things he wandered into was a very hard column, face-first, after twisting his ankle and tipping forward with all his weight behind him. Zelda had sworn to protect him from all the evils of the world, and then had gone and let him slam right into a stone wall. Truly, there was never a more reprehensible woman in the world than she. 

The situation was made a hundred times worse when Zelda’s husband, paragon of heroism and justice that he was, came into the bedroom, mouth half-open to greet her, and sheath already shrugged off of his shoulder. He froze in the doorway and took in the situation. Zelda, with tears welling up in her sad green eyes, clutching a screaming, squirming Tiran as though someone had threatened to spirit him away from her, and looking all the world like she was about to face the executioner’s block. There was a rather long silence as Link’s eyes darted between his distraught wife and his furious son, waiting for an explanation that Zelda didn’t want to give. 

“Oh, _Link!_” Zelda wailed, beginning to cry in earnest. “I’ve d-done something t-t-terrible!” It took a few moments of confusion and panic, but Link was finally able to piece together exactly what had happened. At first, when he saw the size of the bruise and the expression of childish agony on his son’s small face, his first instinct was to grab his sword and go hack the offending column to pieces. Then he realized that would do nothing to solve the problem at hand, namely, calming both his hysterical wife and child. 

Resisting his initial desire to abandon his emotional control, he carefully pulled Tiran out of Zelda’s arms and laid him against his shoulder, bouncing up and down gently. Zelda went across the room and sank onto the bed, crossing her arms and hugging herself tightly with a little whimper. After a few minutes, Tiran calmed and began fiddling with Link’s earring. Really, half of his problem was just that his mother had been clinging to him too tightly. Father had much gentler arms. Tiran voiced this observation with a quiet croon and yanked a bit harder on Link’s earring in appreciation. Expertly unfastening his son’s fingers from the jewelry with one hand, the Prince Consort gingerly lowered the child into the playpen in the corner, where he sat, contentedly cooing and gnawing on a teething ring. Already feeling a bit calmer himself, Link turned his attention to his wife, who was staring at their son as though he was a lost privilege. Link cautiously approached her and sat beside her. When she didn’t react, he took it as a good sign, and put an arm around her shoulders. 

“It’s really not that bad,” he began timidly, speaking as much to himself as to Zelda. 

“He could have been concussed,” Zelda moaned, refusing to look at him. “Or dashed his brains out on the floor.” 

“...No, I really don’t think so,” Link replied as calmly as he could. “He’s alright now, see? Already forgotten the whole thing.” 

“He would hate me if he knew better,” Zelda sniffled. “I’m a terrible mother.” 

“No, you’re not,” Link said with a bit of exasperation. “It was an accident.” 

“I should have protected him. I always fail when there are people counting on me!” 

“No, you _don’t,_” Link barked a little more sharply than he had meant. “I count on you every day, and you’re always there for me.” He flushed deeply as she finally turned to look at him, surprise mingling with the tears in her eyes. Even after all this time, it was still awkward to talk about his feelings, even to her. “...There’s just some things you can’t protect people from,” he continued quietly. “Even him.” 

“But he’s....Link, he’s so _small!_ And helpless!” Zelda whimpered.

“Not nearly as small as he used to be,” Link argued. “He’s getting bigger and stronger every day. But there will always be things that can hurt him. Things we can’t stop. Our responsibility is to be there for him when he does get hurt. That’s all we can really do.” He tugged her closer and put his other arm around her, hoping that was all he needed to say. He was worn out from a long day, and it was still hard for him to find all the words Zelda needed to hear. She snuffled into his tunic, but didn’t sob anymore. Tiran impatiently banged his ring against the bars of his pen, wishing to be the center of attention once again. Hesitantly, Zelda pulled back from Link and crossed to room to pick up her son, examining the bruise. It didn’t look quite as big as it had at first. Tiran really had forgotten all about it, and was now happily tapping her collarbone with his wet toy.

“I suppose....It’s not so very bad, is it?” she murmured, breathing a short sigh. “And it had to happen if he was ever going to learn to walk.” Link hummed in agreement, coming up behind her and resting his chin on her shoulder, staring into Tiran’s large blue eyes. “...It will probably happen again, won’t it?” Zelda added sadly. 

“Probably,” Link replied. He pressed a feather-light kiss to her cheek. “But we’ll be there when it does.” Zelda settled against him comfortably, content in the knowledge that she really wasn’t the worst mother in the world. Just not the best. But perhaps that was alright. Every child had to bump their head before they could walk. And every heart had to hurt before it could be made whole. She certainly knew that from personal experience. But she realized, standing there with Link’s arms around her and her son in her own, she wouldn’t trade that pain for anything now. Everything had happened for a reason, and she wouldn’t change a moment of it if it meant she couldn’t have the life she had now. 

“You’re going to be a great king, someday,” she said quietly to her son. “I suppose this is just the first of many lessons we have to learn before we get there, hmm?” 

“Ga-baa,” Tiran wisely agreed.

“Though I must say it would be better for my nerves if you were an exceptionally quick learner, and we did not have to do this again.” 

The child chose not to make any such promise.  
*****  
“_Ow!_”

“Sit still,” Zelda reprimanded, giving her son’s shoulder a gentle smack. 

“You’re making it worse,” he complained, gripping the edge of his bed as he hunched forward. 

“That means it’s working,” the queen informed him, spreading more of the pungent medicinal salve over the cut on his back. “Now,” she said briskly, unrolling a length of bandage to wrap around his chest. “What have we learned today?” 

“Never turn your back on a Lizalfos,” Tiran muttered through gritted teeth, inhaling sharply as the clean bandages were pressed against the still-stinging wound. 

“_Don’t_ pick fights with Lizalfos at all,” his mother corrected him hotly. 

“I wasn’t picking a fight with Lizalfos. I was picking a fight with a Moblin when the Lizalfos showed up out of nowhere. _Ow!_” Zelda yanked sharply on the bandage to tighten it. 

“That’s hardly any better! Honestly, Tiran, it’s like you _ask_ for trouble to find you. Even your reckless father knows better than to go galavanting off into known Moblin territory without at least a Hasty Elixir.” The young prince stiffened a bit at the mention of his father. There was a silent pause as Zelda cut the end of the bandage from the roll. 

“It was patrolling a trade route,” Tiran said softly. “The merchants who travel that road with their goods were in danger.” There was another stretch of silence as Zelda regarded her son with a softer look. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. “A-and besides. It was guarding a chest with three hundred Rupees in it. There was no way I was going to walk past that.” 

“You are the crown prince of Hyrule,” Zelda pointed out gently, packing her supplies back into the medical kit. “You are not exactly hurting for finances.” She set the kit on the bed beside her and carefully draped her arm across Tiran’s slumped shoulders. “I cannot say that I’m not proud of you,” she admitted. “But you need to exercise more caution. Hyrule is depending on you. And you know what it would do to Father and me if something happened to you.” She squeezed him gently and tucked a loose lock of his hair behind his ear. Goddesses, he looked so much like Link it was uncanny. The only thing Tiran took from Zelda was his range of expression. It was always easy to tell what the young man was thinking, just from the look on his face. Right now, he was embarrassed, but also a little pleased with himself. 

Tiran cleared his throat awkwardly and gently shrugged her arm off of his shoulder as he stood up, stretching carefully so as not to worsen the throbbing in his back. 

“I would....appreciate it,” he said haltingly. “If you would....fail to mention this encounter to Father.” 

“He would not scold you any more than I already have,” Zelda pointed out. 

“No, he would stare stonily at me and then tell me after a long, awkward silence that this only happened because I wasn’t keeping up with my training,” Tiran spat. He flushed as he realized what he said. Zelda’s look of affection mingled with worry dropped into one of disappointment. 

“Tiran...” she began softly. 

“Just....nevermind,” he huffed, grabbing his bloody tunic from the floor and angrily throwing it into the laundry hamper. 

“Tiran, I _know_ he’s proud of you,” Zelda insisted. “He only pushes you because he wants you to be safe. If you would just talk to him, I’m sure he would--”

“Yeah, I know,” Tiran interrupted quickly, in a way that told Zelda that he knew, but he really didn’t believe it. “I know, I-I’m sorry.” He grabbed a fresh tunic out of the wardrobe and pulled it over his head. “Well, I’m rather famished,” he said brightly, running a hand through his mussed hair. “Think I’ll head down to the kitchens and see what Miss Koko’s baked today.” He leaned down and pecked Zelda’s cheek. “Thanks for the doctoring, Mother.” 

“Of course,” the queen sighed, watching him leave. She remained perched on the edge of his bed for a while, eyes wandering around the room, taking in the sight of battered shields on the wall, monster horns hung above the mantle, and a broken training dummy in the corner. It had been sixteen years, and her son still had a lot to learn. But she had been there for every bump, bruise, cut, and heartbreak that had taught him, no matter how much it pained her to see him hurt.

“And I suppose that’s all we can really do,” she said to herself with another sigh.


End file.
